AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

hours and I ended up in the next state.
    Munroe, she assumed, was already up when the alarm woke her at 5:30 a.m. She’d prepared a little nest for him in the living room before going to sleep. The TV was set to CNN with the closed captioning turned on. She had brought her laptop and portable terminal to the coffee table and had booted the computer into the AfterNet OS. And she had already left the cat door flap up, afraid she might forget in the rush to leave in the morning.
    She wandered into the living room, still groggy from lack of sleep and unaccustomed to waking this early. She put on her wireless ear buds so she could talk to him while she was getting ready to go.
    “Morning Alex,” she mumbled while brushing her teeth. She heard no reply and thought the brushing had garbled her voice. She looked at her laptop, then the terminal and saw that he wasn’t connected.
    “Where the hell is he?” she asked herself out loud.
    She went back to the kitchen to start making coffee and saw that the door was closed. She remembered she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, felt a draft coming from the kitchen, and closed the door.
    She went in, rinsed her mouth at the kitchen sink, and started making coffee. While grinding the beans, she thought she heard something and stopped. Hearing nothing further, she continued grinding when she again thought she heard something.
    “Alex?”
    “You closed the damn door, Linda.”
    “What? Oh. Were you … you were in the kitchen?”
    “I went out last night. I thought I saw something outside in your backyard.”
    “What, like a burglar?”
    “Yes, like a burglar. So I went outside to investigate.”
    “My hero. And?”
    “Must have been dogs or something. Or maybe there was somebody. I took a look and saw your neighbor’s dogs barking.”
    “It was probably just another dog or a raccoon. They get into the trashcans on the porch. Drives Pepe and Pepito nuts. Stupid Labs. I think they woke me up.”
    “Yeah, and then you closed the door.”
    “Oh, Alex, I’m sorry. Gosh, that was around three. Have you been waiting in the kitchen all that time?”
    “More or less. Not many places open Sunday morning after Christmas. I tried using the public terminal at your post office, but it wasn’t working.”
    “Poor baby. But why were you prowling around the kitchen like a watch dog?”
    “I got bored, wanted to stretch my legs.”
    He can’t stop being a cop, she thought. He probably checks to make sure I lock up and looks out the windows like a night watchman. Just like my dad.
    She’d been making the coffee during the conversation and now the little coffeemaker was finished. “Well, I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got to hurry. I told Mary I’d pick her up.” She took her coffee into the bedroom while she added last minute items to her backpack. He was still next to the terminal in the living room.
    “I hope my lapse won’t discourage you from using the place while I’m gone.”
    “I’ll probably hang out at the department,” he said, then thought it sounded a little ungrateful. “But I might spend some time here, too.”
    She was assembling her belongings by the front door getting ready to leave. “Whatever,” she said. “See you at work Tuesday if you’re not here when I get back. Remember, we’ll have to leave by 8:30 if we want to make it to the Springs on time. I’ll try to check my email when I can.”
    “Have a good time,” he said. But she was already removing her ear buds and was placing them in a little basket on a table by the front door and was gone.
    He felt a little sad when she left and still a little irritated after waiting in the kitchen for three hours. It had taken such a short time for him to feel possessive about her place, and he really was grateful that she had let him stay. When he really thought about it, he was most mad that she had left so quickly and not given him enough time to bitch and moan. What a miserable human being I am.
    He felt contrite as he went online and checked his email. Melissa had responded to his reply that he’d be happy if she accompanied him on the Egypt trip. He tried to find her online somewhere on the AfterNet but had no luck. She’d mentioned that she would be staying with her brother’s family over holidays and hoped she was well.
    His conversation with Rybold weighed heavily on his mind. Rybold’s center sounded like a wonderful opportunity, but he just couldn’t get past the